The San Marcos High School girls basketball team entered Tuesday night needing a win at home against Manor and a Lehman loss against Del Valle to finish in a fourth-place tie with Lehman at the end of the regular season. In that case, the two teams would have played a tiebreaker game to decide which would go to the playoffs.

But while the Lobos were taking a 71-24 beating at Del Valle, the Rattlers struggled in the second quarter against Lehman and wound up losing, 61-45.

Thus, Lehman takes the final playoff berth with a 5-7 District 17-4A record for fourth place. Lehman is 13-17 overall. The Rattlers dropped to 4-8 in the district and 17-15 overall.

Despite losing out on a playoff berth, San Marcos coach Shad Scharlach was counting his blessings. His team almost tripled last year’s total of six wins and ended the game in good style with a gritty second half after falling behind, 35-16, at intermission.

“Our kids left it on the floor in the second half, and that’s all you can ask for as a coach,” Scharlach said.

The Rattlers lost the game in the second quarter, when foul trouble tested the bench and Manor pounced for a 22-5 advantage during those eight minutes. Otherwise, the Rattlers played evenly with their visitors, who improved to 19-10 overall and 9-3 in the district.

“The game was kind of like a roller coaster for us, up and down,” Manor coach Kerri Kirby said. “But the up part was good. We have that inconsistency that we need to work on.”

Jessica Walker led Manor with 18 points, followed by Kaylin Monroe with 14. Daisha Williams and Allie Gonzales led San Marcos with 13 and 12 points, respectively.

Despite missing the playoffs, Scharlach saw a lot to like in his program. His team returns virtually everyone next year except Daisha and Jasmine Williams, and it worked up good wins in the non-district part of the season against Akins, San Antonio O’Connor and Lytle.

“We played a very tough non-district schedule against (Class) 5A programs, tough 4A programs and very tough 3A,” he said. “I’m very optimistic about next year.”